In the outskirts of Sydney, up into the Blue Mountains, there are some 1.5 million people living in what could be described as "bushland settings." If conditions in the future were ever to mimic Victoria's on February 7, where would all those people go? And who would do all the evacuating?

In Australia, it's impossible to evacuate 500,000 to 1.5 million people from an area under threat. China evacuates millions, some years more than 20 million, from flood zones every time the super-rains come and rivers rise dangerously so. But it takes days to do it safely, and it's a fantasy to think that we have anywhere near the resources to stage such mass evacuations. In Victoria or New South Wales, unlike China, most of those evacuated would have nowhere to go, and state governments would have nowhere to even tent all those people while a bushfire threat passes.

If climate change has in reality given us an horrific preview this year of what's to come, perhaps the now impossible problems of massive evacuation in Australia will be overcome, eventually. Maybe.